


killer

by naruhoe



Series: by your side (i’ll be there) [3]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Low Chaos (Dishonored), M/M, Spymaster!Daud, daud is angsty and confused, the regenter attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 07:42:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13876320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naruhoe/pseuds/naruhoe
Summary: Daud saves an Empress.(Spymaster!Daud AU.)





	killer

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Убийца](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14184156) by [Easy_Owl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Easy_Owl/pseuds/Easy_Owl)



It's been over a week since his last encounter with the Royal Protector, and the bruises around his neck have faded to mere shadows. Daud can't seem to get them off his mind. He finds himself absentmindedly adjusting his collar halfway through a briefing, pacing his office at some godforsaken hour of the morning with a hand at his throat because he couldn't find it in himself to rest (The Spymaster's quarters are far too quiet. As much as he claimed to despise the muggy air of the Waterfront, the silence is almost worse, no creaking of half-rotten buildings, or the lapping of stagnant water gaining another inch on said buildings. Just quiet. Isolation. Daud remembers that at one point, he would have welcomed it.). 

In the showers, those his men share with the tower guard and Daud shares with his men, he catches Thomas watching him with something suspiciously like concern in those deep blue eyes of his, though the man only nods politely when Daud catches his eye and turns away, soapy bubbles sliding down the lean muscle of his neck and shoulders. Thomas is quiet, but he has always been so, and Daud knows better than to mistake his second's silence for complacency. 

Corvo does not appear that week, either, nor the next, and Daud's skin is unmarked. It feels off, _wrong_ , somehow to go about his business without the fading imprints of teeth and pressing fingers hidden beneath his uniform's high collar. It's red, of course, his coat, just like the predecessor that's folded neatly at the bottom of Daud's trunk of meager worldly posessions. His crosshatched blade and mask sit quietly atop the coat. He hasn't touched them since the Spymaster's coat showed up on his bed one day, hasn't killed since the day that Billie left him amid the corpses of his slaughtered men, her betrayal ringing in his ears. And _Delilah_... Only Daud knows the truth about Delilah, the extent of her twisted plans, and how those plans would have had her enthroned in Emily's 10 year-old body. If Daud has his way, nobody will ever know, and that suits Daud just fine. Where he had failed before, he won't do so again, not if he can help it. Corvo, though, Corvo is an entirely different matter. When the Royal Protector looks _at_ him, it's more like being looked _into_ , measured, assessed, and judged all within the space of a moment. Daud feels acutely just how far he falls short every single time (He is loathe to admit how it eats at him.).

A month passes, coming and going almost faster than Daud can draw breath, but he keeps his head above the water. Barely. With the intensity with which he's thrown himself into his work, it's a miracle he hasn't fallen asleep at his desk yet. It's almost enough to keep his mind from wandering, keep his hands away from his collar; keep his eyes from Corvo Attano, the most of which he sees of which anymore is at Council meetings, where the man looms threateningly over Emily's shoulder as if daring the gathered nobility to argue against her. It's enough. But Corvo isn't always there. His fault is that he can't be everywhere at once. Not with his duties, many of which are Emily's but Corvo takes on instead to lessen the load on the young Empress's shoulders. 

It's during a carriage ride, Daud riding in the coach behind Emily and her friend Alexi, when it happens. The carriages grind to a sudden halt. Daud can _hear_ the fizzle of the carriage lines shorting out when the first shot splits the air, felling the unfortunate city watchman, who had stepped out to investigate the source of the train's abrupt halt. Several masked figures step out from behind their cover, brandishing pistols and rapiers and provoking several shrieks from the nobles ensconced in the carriage alongside Daud, but the attacker's weapons are trained only on the carriage ahead of them. _Emily's_ carriage, Daud realizes. To Alexi's credit, she's the first to act, darting out of the carriage and snatching the watchman's unused pistol from his rapidly-cooling hand, all while she shouts at Emily to 'get down, my lady!', in her 11 year-old's voice. Daud notes, with vague exasperation, that the girl's thumb is too short to actually reach the hammer as he appears behind one of the attackers, his wristbow firing a sleeping dart at one of the others as he brings down the pommel of his sword on the assailant's head. Not the most elegant takedown, but it does the trick, sending the man crumpling to the cobblestones.

As Daud moves on to the next attacker, a paunchy man wearing an ugly, vaguely rabbitlike mask of the sort one might find at parties, a shot rings through the air next to Daud's head. It _appears_ that Alexi has figured out how to shoot a pistol. At least she's had the good sense to duck back into the carriage alongside Emily, but there are several more assailants that have taken cover behind the side of a building, emerging occasionally to take potshots at the carriage, and Daud sees no help in sight. He's taken down another one when his attention is drawn once more to the carriage, where Alexi is holding a _grenade_ \- yes, a live grenade, which she throws with impressive aim at the entrance to a nearby alleyway. It explodes upon impact with the cobblestones, but Daud cannot afford to inspect the results, busy trading blows with his current opponent.

"I know you!" The man pants, their swords sliding against one another, creating a deadlock that Daud simply does not have time for. "You're Daud! Killed a lot of people. Not always bad people, too, but if the coin was good-!" He leers. Daud's lip curls. "Heard you killed her too- the Empress; killed her and sold her daughter!" With a snarl that seems more beast than man, Daud shoves off against the man's sword, ending the deadlock and sending the other stumbling off in the opposite direction, but they refuse to _just shut up._ The worst part about it is the vaguely admiring tone the man has adopted, like Daud is _proud_ of his accomplishment, proud of murdering Jessamine Kaldwin. "You're a killer, Daud- How long till you kill another Empress, Knife of Dunwall? My organization- we can pay you even better than Burrows did for it. You'll be rich- mountains of coin, I swear.! All you have to do- is kill the girl." 

Daud sees red, and before he knows it, his fist is clenching, the Outsider's mark burning bright on the back of his hand, the Void moving around him, _through him_ for the first time in months, and he reappears behind the masked assailant, his blade punching a crimson hole in the man's back. The tip reappears, painted a shiny, gory red, through its unfortunate victim's sternum. The man's gurgling is quite loud in his ears as Daud simply stands there, chest heaving. He hears everything, in that moment, the hysterical sobbing of one of the noblewomen back in the carriages, the groan of the man that Alexi managed to injure, the rush of blood in his ears. His heart pounds, his tongue thick, and he knows that his pupils must be dilated. Droplets of still-warm blood spatter against the cobblestone below, but the Spymaster's hands are steady as any surgeon's. It drips down the grip of his blade, soaks into the crease of his gloves, and Daud feels, suddenly, bone tired. He jerks his blade free from the cooling body, ignoring its crumple to the ground. The attacker wasn't wrong about one thing, at least. Daud  _is_ a killer.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy. No Daud/Corvo interaction in this one, but we'll get to that in the next part. It seems like those two have a lot to talk about... Canon-divergence in this chapter, but that goes along with the fact that it's a sketchy AU. Again, thank you, lovely reader, for reading. I appreciate any comments and kudos so so so much, especially comments! I love getting feedback from you guys. Until next time~


End file.
